Poster of the summary of the EU FP7 project OSCAR

Baresel, Jörg Peter

Döring, Thomas F.

Finckh, Maria R.

Organic Eprints

 A new European project on cover crops Introduction  There is widespread concern over the damage caused by modern agriculture to soil structure and the ecosystem services provided. One approach to overcome this problem is conservation agricul-ture which aims to maintain soil structure by    minimising soil disturbance,    maximising soil cover, and   and using crop rotation.  However, despite recent legislation supporting minimum tillage and direct seeding, conservation agriculture is still practised on less than 4% of the agricultural land in Europe.  This underlines the need for major improvements in this ap-proach together with consolidation of, and access to, information about alternative cropping methods and their biological and eco-nomic value and performance. Research programme  OSCAR (Optimising Subsidiary Crop Application in Rotations), a European research project, addresses these problems by ex-tending existing knowledge and improving and developing novel cropping systems based on cover crops, catch crops, liv-ing mulches and other subsidiary crops.   OSCAR started in April 2012, and is led by University of Kassel, Germany; conducted by 22 partners it will run for 4 years.  OSCAR aims to enhance the implementation and increase the duration of soil coverage by plants, introduce diversity to the crop rotation and reduce the need for and the intensity of soil tillage. Particular attention is given to conservation tillage sys-tems.   OSCAR considers both conventional and conservation agricul-tural systems, encouraging a high level of innovation as well as offering a more immediate transfer into practical agriculture.  A series of field trials in an Multi-Environment Experiment as OSCAR’s experimental platform. It is complemented by three long-term agricultural experiments on Conservation Agricul-ture, cover crops and living mulches.   Project structure  Management & Dissemination  Germplasm screening Soil ecological impact Multi-Environment Experiment: Agronomy Cover Crop Toolbox Machinery development Plant competition & weed control Plant pest and diseases OSCAR will develop a Cover Crop Toolbox, which -  Brings together the knowledge generated through the research and make project information available   Reduces the fragmentation of existing knowledge by drawing to-gether existing information in a central place.  Aims to help farmers to identify SC species most suited to their specific production systems, including economic aspects and technology requirements.  Encourages feedback from users and thus can evolve dynamically during and beyond the present project. Impact through a Cover Crop Toolbox Design : T Döring & A. Millon Fremillon Peter Baresel1, Thomas F Döring2 and Maria R Finckh3   1  Department of Plant Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Germany, E-mail: baresel@wzw.tum.de 2  The Organic Research Centre, Hamstead Marshall, UK, E-mail: thomas.d@organicresearchcentre.com 3  Department of Ecological Plant Protection, University of Kassel, Germany, E-mail: mfinckh@uni-kassel.de  Partners  University of Kassel, DE  Agroscope-Reckenholz-Taenikon, CH  Institute f. Agricultural & Environmental Research-BIOFORSK, NO  International Researech Center for Agri-culture in dry Areas, SY  Intitut National por la recherche Agri-cole, Morocco  Institute of Soil Science and Plant Culti-vation, PL  The Organic Research Centre, UK  Swedish University of Agricultural Sci-ences, SE  Scuola Superiore S.Anna, IT  Universita' degli Studi di Pisa, IT  Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Ger-many  Universita della Tuscia, IT  University of Copenhagen, DK  Wageningen University, NL  University of Santa Maria, BR  IAPAR, BR  Friedrich Wenz Landtechnik GmbH, DE  ARCOIRIS, IT  P.H. Petersen Saatzucht Lundsgaard, DE  Marangon s.r.l., IT  Hassouni, Morocco  Ferrari Costruzioni mecchanice SRL, IT 

A new European Project on cover crops

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